Can Hillary stem Obama’s momentum?

White House Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton fought to stave off a wave of momentum for rival Barack Obama before a primary contest in Wisconsin that will hinge on a large working class vote.

Obama, on a roll after eight consecutive victories in the nomination race, hopes to extend his winning streak in the Midwestern state as well as in caucuses in Hawaii on Tuesday.

Polls showed a tight race in Wisconsin with the Illinois senator enjoying a narrow five-point lead over the former first lady, according to a new survey by Research 2000, US media reported.

The poll was conducted Wednesday and Thursday and showed 11 percent of voters remained undecided.

The candidates faced freezing temperatures as they tried to woo working class voters in Wisconsin, which has 74 delegates at stake and has played a historic role in past nomination races.

Bad weather on Sunday forced both candidates to cancel some events while Obama reportedly paid a visit to North Carolina to meet John Edwards out of the view of reporters. Edwards, a former rival in the White House race, has yet to offer an endorsement for either contender.

Senator Clinton, who has tended to do well among blue-collar workers elsewhere, has spent less time in Wisconsin and has instead pinned her hopes on delegate-rich Ohio and Texas on March 4 to stop Obama’s surge and turn the race in her favor.

As the Democratic candidates sought to rally the mostly white, working class electorate in Wisconsin, campaign officials and advocates argued over the role of “superdelegates” in selecting the party’s presidential nominee.

Trailing Obama in the popular vote so far, the Clinton campaign argued that hundreds of “superdelegates” — party activists and elected officials who get a vote at the Democratic convention in August — were not bound by the results of voting in their home states.

Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio, a supporter of the former first lady and himself a superdelegate, told Fox television on Sunday the independence of superdelegates was part of the process, and “those are the rules.”

As a superdelegate, Strickland said “I think my responsibility is to vote my conscience, and I intend to do that.”

But Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, a pro-Obama superdelegate whose state votes Tuesday, said that approach would defy the popular will and damage the party.

“I think it would be an absolute disaster for the Democratic Party for the superdelegates to undo the will of the people who have been selected in the primaries and in the caucuses and by the rules that were set out,” he told Fox.

In a close race governed by elaborate party rules, neither candidate may emerge from the state-by-state primaries with enough regular delegates to clinch the Democratic Party nomination.

Hundreds of superdelegates would then hand one candidate the party’s mantle, and as of now, Clinton leads among those party leaders and lawmakers.

The candidates traded attacks in television ads and speeches, with Clinton painting Obama as inexperienced and lacking substance while he portrayed the New York senator as hamstrung by Washington’s partisan ways.

Hawaii, which has 20 delegates in play, is expected to break for Obama, who was born and raised there.

Including pledged superdelegates, Obama has 1,302 delegates so far, compared to 1,235 for Clinton, according to independent website RealClearPolitics. A total of 2,025 are needed for the nomination.

In the Republican race, front-runner John McCain is forecast to win easily against former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in Wisconsin and take another step to the 1,191 delegates he needs to secure the party’s presidential nomination.

With Huckabee lagging far behind, the Arizona senator already has 825 delegates in hand and has started to position himself for the November general election — charging that his Democratic rivals would raise taxes if elected.

Discussing the troubled US economy, McCain promised no new taxes in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”

“In fact, I could see an argument if our economy continues to deteriorate, for lower interest rates, lower tax rates and certainly decreasing corporate tax rates, which are the second-highest in the world,” McCain said.

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Saturday and Sunday I took a check around some of my old forums and admitted I was backing Obama in November. I was hit with some terrible comments which led me to believe that the GOP is packing a load of racism that I never heard before.

“He’s BLACK! He’s a MUSLIM! He’s a SOCIALIST!” This from more than one source and it shook me to my bones.

Most sites would never make such claims but the words of Rush and his gang of Conservatives are being heard and followed.

I happen to agree with McCain that our economy will improve if we get off the backs of our small businesses and tax payers and certainly to not tax them at all. But my emotions tell me to see the GOP stomped out for their inability to see all Americans as equals.

America is growing up but we are not fully grown until people who support the Republicans are defeated. It is deeper than their racism as we need to tell them that gays and women are also Americans.

We may never get another chance to knock these bigots out of our government. I believe we need a second party to balance our Congress but not one based on Racism, Religion or Homophobia.

Yeah, and the Democrats are all angels from heaven. I can’t believe you fall for any of the BS from either side. Do you think that the Dems fielding a woman and a black for the nomination was just happenstance? This entire election has been staged to bring out the worst in people, and their success is staggeringly effective.

These candidates will say anything to get elected. I don’t believe anything any of them say. They are unapologetic and pathetic panderers. It makes me sick to watch their ridiculous campaigning. They are elitists and hold each and every one of us in contempt.

They don’t care about us. They care about power. Absolute power. They wish to control every aspect of our lives, for we can’t be trusted with such responsibilities. We are far too dumb to know what is right or wrong, so they must project their own distorted values onto us; by force, if necessary.

Your idea is to give the Democrats total control of the government? Perhaps we would be better served by changing the Republican party from within, rather than surrendering to the “lesser of two evils”.

Neither party, in their current form, represent the people or the principles that built this country. They represent globalism. Each and every one of them.

It seems that it is easier for you to abandon your principles than it is to fight for real change. Just jump on the Obama bandwagon, and he’ll fix everything. Hope is for the weak. Hope is for people that have given up on our country and want to put their lives in the hands of the government.

Myself, I would much rather fight to restore our Republic and the Republican ideals of The Founders. This won’t be accomplished in one election cycle, but the winds of change are most certainly blowing in the Republican party.

There are millions of new Republicans throughout the country that the Republican Establishment have all but ignored. “Ron Paul Republicans”. Republicans that reject the racism and religious zealotry that has held sway for so long in the party. Republicans that reject endless war and interventionist philosophy. Republicans that firmly believe in the Constitution and the rule of law. We believe that rights are assigned to the individual, not groups.

If you want to run the bastards out, then here is your opportunity. But instead, you jump ship to sleep with the enemy. Yes, Democracy is the antithesis of a Republic.

In the words of Benjamin Franklin:

“Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on the dinner menu…Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote!”

John Adams:

“Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.”

It is clear that the Evangelicals have lost their swagger in the Republican party, so we are winning on that front. Maybe looking to the future instead of dwelling on the past will help us turn the corner.

Right now, regular people across the country are sacrificing their time and money to make this happen. Dwelling on the sins of the past will not change anything, it only serves to further deepen the divide in this country.

Ron Paul has managed to actually bring people of all stripes into the Republican fold. He is a true uniter of people. He is a true statesman and thinker. He understands the problems we face, and offers logical and legal solutions; not just rhetoric and platitudes.

We are witnessing in many states “Ron Paul Republicans” stepping to the plate and running for Congress. This is where the true change will take place.

We rant and rave about our “leaders” and their rampant corruption, yet we will again vote one of their ilk into power.

This will be a long struggle, there is no doubt. Ron Paul has planted the seed, but it is up to the people to nourish it and make it grow. Ron Paul has awakened in this country an unquenchable thirst for sanity and responsibility in government.

With that thought, I would encourage anyone interested in Ron Paul’s views on foreign policy, the economy, and liberty, to check out the many books he has written.

His latest, to be released on April 30, is entitled “The Revolution: A Manifesto”.

Here is the preface to the book:

“Every election cycle we are treated to candidates who promise us “change,” and 2008 has been no different. But in the American political lexicon, “change” always means more of the same: more government, more looting of Americans, more inflation, more police-state measures, more unnecessary war, and more centralization of power.

Real change would mean something like the opposite of those things. It might even involve following our Constitution. And that’s the one option Americans are never permitted to hear….

With national bankruptcy looming, politicians from both parties continue to make multi-trillion dollar promises of “free” goods from the government, and hardly a soul wonders if we can still afford to have troops in – this is not a misprint – 130 countries around the world. All of this is going to come to an end sooner or later, because financial reality is going to make itself felt in very uncomfortable ways. But instead of thinking about what this means for how we conduct our foreign and domestic affairs, our chattering classes seem incapable of speaking in anything but the emptiest platitudes, when they can be bothered to address serious issues at all. Fundamental questions like this, and countless others besides, are off the table in our mainstream media, which focuses our attention on trivialities and phony debates as we march toward oblivion.

This is the deadening consensus that crosses party lines, that dominates our major media, and that is strangling the liberty and prosperity that were once the birthright of Americans. Dissenters who tell their fellow citizens what is really going on are subject to smear campaigns that, like clockwork, are aimed at the political heretic. Truth is treason in the empire of lies.

There is an alternative to national bankruptcy, a bigger police state, trillion-dollar wars, and a government that draws ever more parasitically on the productive energies of the American people. It’s called freedom. But as we’ve learned through hard experience, we are not going to hear a word in its favor if our political and media establishments have anything to say about it.

If we want to live in a free society, we need to break free from these artificial limitations on free debate and start asking serious questions once again. I am happy that my campaign for the presidency has finally raised some of them. But this is a long-term project that will persist far into the future. These ideas cannot be allowed to die, buried beneath the mind-numbing chorus of empty slogans and inanities that constitute official political discourse in America.

Clinton has two chances to reverse the Obama tsunami – Texas and Ohio. She must win both, and she must win them substantially.

Clinton’s campaign to date looks much like the action plan of France’s Marshal Joffre in the middle of August, 1914. The presumption of easy victory has evaporated, her forces have suffered repeated and significant defeat, her allies wavering, and there seems no way to stem the tide of the opponent pouring down on her.

It remains to be seen whether or not Clinton can do what is necessary to pull off something equivalent to the “Miracle of ther Marne” or whether she is, like Marshal MacMahon and the befuddled Napoleon III, stumbling toward the inevitable Sedan.

Griff, I have never voted for a Democrat in my life. I have written in P.J. O’Roark for the last Presidential elections. I am sick of the GOP running around spouting Jesus all over the place and then tell me they will never vote for a Black Man or a Muslim. That set my fuse off!

The GOP must be removed from power. They have had it for 7 years and the screwed America royally with their secrecy, the wars, the destroying our economics and trade agreements. Now they want to run a man who will Amend the Constitution to prohibit a whole bunch of sins that they commit daily. I cannot take the hypocrisy another day.

It is all over the internet and it is ugly. It took Rush to lead them into a false world of needing a police state.

Every damn nation on this planet has handed the government over to the religious people and all of them turned into blood shed with massacres done in the name of one God or another.

Ron Paul could not get enough supporters to even get a mention on the nights of the election. I have little respect for the Democrats butI’ve been a card carrying Republican since 1953 and they have fallen into a terrible corrupt power that will destroy our nation.

Wow. You apparently have a very short fuse, but one that miraculously has regenerative powers. You are so completely consumed by your own hatred and intolerance as to render any sane discourse positively impossible.

As far as I can see, the only one still “spouting Jesus” is Huckabee. We all know where his campaign is headed. The Religious Right is no longer the force that they were, so can we give it a rest, already? It’s ancient history. By the way, though, they are still American citizens and are afforded the same voice that we all have, and are free to support whomever they wish. Thankfully, for all of us, they have failed to maintain the kind of grip on the Republican party they once had.

The idea you seem to have is that all Republicans are religious zealots. Nothing is further from the truth, but it is apparent that you’ll beat this dead horse until there is nothing left but dust.

And what the hell does Rush have to do with anything? He is a talk show windbag and is to be treated as such. You say he is responsible for the police state? Last I knew he doesn’t even hold public office. The Democrats are very much in favor of not only continuing with the police state, but will surely expand it.

Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the Democrats have held both houses of Congress for two years now, and have failed to do anything constructive with their time. If you think that this “standoff” with Dubya over FISA somehow means that they are against it is naive. Dog-and-pony political grandstanding. They will cave as soon as they get back…Watch and see.

As far as trade agreements and economics go, remember who signed NAFTA into law? The Clintons were every bit as secretive (and still are) as the Bushies, so that argument doesn’t hold water. The Democrats also supported the war in all its splendor, and still do. Obama thinks it’s a good idea to invade Pakistan.

To blame the “destruction of our nation” solely on the Republicans just shows that you have bought into the whole left vs. right paradigm that is the true divider and conqueror. The only thing that “screwed our country royally” is the system that both parties maintain and control. Trading one party for the other is simply not a solution.

As far as Ron Paul goes, the media blackout has assured that no potential new supporters will ever hear his message. We have come a long way in a year, and we will continue.

“Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught in falsehoods school. And the one man that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool.” – Plato

“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.” – Dresden James

I don’t know Flapsaddle, McCain, Huckabee, Romney all have mentioned their Constitional Amendment to ban abortions and gay marriages. It is mentioned in just about every group session of Republican candidates and party leaders. I believe it is in the Platform. At the last full debate, Romney stated that every Republican on the stage was behind the Amendment. The camera went to Paul who shook his head. It is the basis for the GOP and only one stood up against it. Of course Giuliani and Fred Thompson said no to the Amendment. What do you think they were talking about? I will not overlook things like this because I do not trust the GOP with anything at this time.

Bush has been able to push unthinkable changes to the Constitution in the last 3 years and he will support any action that will help pay his debt to Robertson which of course is to put up a Sin Amendment.

America cannot be a controlling Empire if the people have free will. We must be controlled with a federal police group to gather data against us as quickly as possible. What do thing that National ID is for?

I never know if your questions are honest or you are again questioning my words. I don’t make this up but I do listen carefully when the Republicans stand up and make their speeches. I heard all these threats in 1999 but many thought I was crazy. I warned about Bush and was banned.

If even one of those prohibitions are put into the Constitution, there won’t be anyone in America who will be considered free. It’s hard to tell where your allegiance lies these days; I believe you are just a mass of words with no meaning. You come after others with questions and you offer nothing. You play a game, and apparently have no interestin a solution. (yawn)

I disagree with your implied thesis – that the President can amend the Constitution strictly through executive authority. The amendment process described puts that authority in the hands of Congress and the states (all amendments to date), or in the hands of the states through a convention (never used).

The fact that all of the GOP candidates have indicated a desire to have certain amendments incorporated – something I do not dispute in the least – is not in any way equivalent to saying that the president – McCain or whoever else – has the authority to do so on his/her own.

Contrary to your assertion, Bush has not “put into the Constitution” any changes at all at any time during his two terms; what he has done is to ignore or else ride rough-shod over the provisions of our national charter, contemptuously refering to it as “…a G-d damn piece of paper!”

I do not mean for my questions to offend, but it’s very hard to think you can have all of the answers if you have not heard all of the questions.